RAW (2 page)

“I’m not going to let you down, so have a little faith.”

The car pulled to a stop and Caelyn opened her eyes. Tears fell down her cheeks, silently, and she looked at the car floor and wiped them away as quickly as she could.

“Deena’s in her room,” Caelyn’s mother said. “We told her to stay there for awhile, since we imagine you’re probably very angry with her right now.”

Caelyn grit her teeth. Just the mention of her younger sister’s name made her want to smash something with her fist.

“I’m okay,” Caelyn muttered.

“You don’t have to do anything but go inside and go to your room,” her mother continued. “Unless you’d like to be with the family—“

“No,” Caelyn interrupted. “I’ll go to my room. I’ll probably just go to sleep anyway.”

Her mother and father looked at one another, concern etched deeply on their faces.

I can’t believe that these people are actually related to me. I hate them.

Part of her fought against the hate, knowing that they were only trying to do what was right for her. She knew that in her parents’ minds, they were only doing the right thing.

Deena, on the other hand…

But Deena was another story, and Caelyn was determined to deal with her sister later.

They all got out of the car and went inside.

The house was eerily quiet, and strangely unfamiliar—like a poor copy of the home she remembered. It all looked the same inside, but nothing felt right anymore.

Nothing felt right.

It’s all fake. Every chair, every stupid magnet on the refrigerator—every family
picture on the wall—none of it’s real.

Beneath the phony outer layer was the truth. And the truth was that these people didn’t care about her at all. They only cared about themselves and what made them feel good about their lives. Anything that might inconvenience them was to be crushed and discarded and destroyed at all costs.

Caelyn walked with great effort up the stairs and to her bedroom. As she got to her room, she paused and listened. Faintly, she could hear Deena humming a Katy Perry song through the thin walls.

She almost couldn’t hold herself back from walking the few extra steps down the hall to her sister’s room. How easy it would have been to throw open the door, storm into the room and begin pummeling Deena. With every punch landed, there would be the satisfaction of knowing that the pain Deena was experiencing was but a small taste of the pain she’d needlessly inflicted on Caelyn and Elijah.

But Caelyn resisted the impulse.

She closed the door to her room and sat down on her bed. Looking out the bedroom window, Caelyn remembered the not so distant past, when she’d gotten a text from a strange number and then seen the truck sitting outside, parked in front of the house.

That had been Elijah, and she’d left with him that night. Just thinking about it made her smile.

But then she snapped back to the present, back to sitting on the bed, alone, in a house shared by her mother and father and sister. Three people who didn’t understand her, three people who’d actively tried to stop her from doing what made her happy.

The silence was grim and Caelyn was jumping out of her skin after just a few minutes.

She finally crawled into bed and curled beneath the covers. She was still weak, and being awake for so long, with little rest, had truly taken a lot out of her. She felt her eyes beginning to close, as she started to drift and drift.

***

Elijah was changing a flat tire.

Rain was pouring down and Elijah was soaked to the bone, kneeling in the mud, as Caelyn stood nearby and watched.

He was changing the tire on Deena’s car and he’d jacked the back left side up in order to replace the flat with a brand new wheel.

Deena wasn’t around, but Caelyn knew that she’d done something to hurt Elijah.

She’d tampered with the car or the jack in some way. Caelyn tried to say something, tried to warn Elijah, but he couldn’t hear her.

She watched as he labored in the rain, his t-shirt soaked through to his skin, mud splattering his jeans as he switched out the bad tire and was about to put on the good one.

Just then, the car made a loud and frightening creaking, grinding noise—and slipped off the jack.

It fell heavily, pinning Elijah’s arm. He gave a horrific scream of pain, and it seared through Caelyn as she saw blood pouring into the mud, mixing with it.

Now she was screaming too. Screaming and screaming, and soon she was trapped in the darkness and she was fighting for her life.

When she woke up, her father was sitting next to her on the bed with wide eyes.

“Caelyn, it’s okay. It’s okay. It’s just a bad dream,” he said.

She licked her lips and took a gasping breath. It took her a moment to realize that none of it had happened—Elijah hadn’t been pinned under Deena’s car. And yet, she thought, the reality of what had happened to him wasn’t all that different.

Deena had trapped him just the same.

Her father put a hand on her shoulder. His hair, she noticed, was infinitely more gray than the last time she’d paid attention. “I’m fine,” she told him.

He looked down at her with a pitying gaze. “What were you dreaming?”

“Nothing,” she said, looking away from him. “I can’t remember.”

He sighed, nodding. He clasped his hands on his lap, but continued to sit on the edge of her bed.

Caelyn turned to look at the clock on her nightstand. It read eight-thirty a.m.

She’d slept through the entire night, apparently.

“I know this has been a horrible ordeal for you, Caelyn,” he said.

“Dad, I don’t want to talk to you right now.” She felt her heartbeat getting faster and her palms sweating. The anger was still so close to the surface—and the pain and sadness, too.

But her father seemed to have other ideas. “I know you don’t want to talk to me, and I totally understand why. But I’m your father, Caelyn. And it’s time we had a serious discussion—just you and me.”

Caelyn sighed and shook her head, dragging herself into a sitting position. It wasn’t easy. Her arms were still weak. She looked at him. “Did Mom send you up here to have this discussion?”

“This isn’t going to turn into you cross-examining me, Caelyn.”

“It’s a simple question.”

He grimaced. “Your mother and I both thought it might be better for me to try and speak to you alone.”

“Dad, it’s kind of too late for this sort of talk. I mean, it’s over. Elijah’s in jail.

You don’t have to worry about me running away and going back to him.”

“This isn’t about him.” Her dad looked directly at her.

“Then what is it about?”

“It’s about putting our family back together.”

Caelyn couldn’t meet his gaze. She thought about Deena and everything she’d done—especially this last thing. “I don’t know if that’s possible anymore.”

“It is possible. We’re a family. That still means something, last I checked.”

“Do you think I want it to be this way?”

“If you want it to change, then start acting like you care. Stop treating each and every one of us like the enemy. We’re not the enemy.”

She glanced up at him, but then away again. “I love Elijah.”

She caught a glimpse of his pained expression at hearing her say those words. “I know you think you love him, but—“

Her stomach clenched. “You see, this is why we can’t talk, Dad. Because you come in here and you want to be honest with each other, but then you try and tell me I don’t love the person I know I love.”

Her father breathed heavily through his nostrils. “What do you expect me to say, Caelyn? You want me to applaud your decisions in life? Running away from home?

Lying? Intimidation? Stealing? Moving in with a criminal? Should I support that kind of behavior?”

She shook her head, staring down at her hands as she clutched the bedspread and squeezed it. “I didn’t ask for anything from you.”

“You’re asking a lot more than you realize,” her father said, getting off the bed.

“But even if you think you’ve given up on us, we haven’t given up on you. And we never will.” He turned and left the room.

The door to her room was open and Caelyn sat there, staring out into the empty hallway.

She didn’t want to be there. She couldn’t stand it anymore. Couldn’t stand another minute in that house, let alone the eternity that stretched out before her.

I’m in prison almost as much as Elijah
, she realized suddenly.

They wouldn’t pay for any of her schooling, so she couldn’t go back to Cambridge. She had no money left. Since the accident, she was weak and frail and easily exhausted.

She couldn’t work a fulltime job or live on her own.

I’m trapped. Trapped.

“Having fun yet?” the familiar, nasty voice called out from the hallway, as Deena’s shadow fell across Caelyn’s doorway.

A chill ran through Caelyn’s very bones.

A moment later, Deena walked into her bedroom. She was sunny-faced, smiling like they were the best of friends and nothing strange had ever happened between them.

“I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation just now,” Deena said, grinning even wider. She was wearing a plaid skirt and white blouse, her hair combed and fluffed, makeup on—all of which gave her an older girl’s appearance. “You can be miserable, Caelyn, but I don’t see why you’re taking it out on poor Dad.”

Caelyn was filled with anger that ran so deep, she thought she might actually be capable of murder. No one, not even Jayson, had ever incurred so much hatred. “I don’t have anything to say to you, Deena,” Caelyn replied, trying to keep her voice steady.

“Why not?” Deena crossed to Caelyn’s bookcase and started browsing casually.

“I always thought you had weird taste in books,” she said, pulling out an old copy of Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. “I never could figure it out. But,” she said, tossing the book back on top of the other books, “maybe it’s like your taste in men.” She smirked. “Anyway, I’ve recently started to gain an appreciation of fine literature. So maybe we have more in common then we thought.”

“Get out, Deena.” Caelyn swallowed. Her heart was racing. She was picturing Elijah in handcuffs being led away from her. Thinking about how he had to pay for Deena’s vindictive nature with years of his life.

It wasn’t fair. And it was impossible to be in the same room with her.

“Listen, I know that you probably think I put my credit card in Elijah’s jacket,”

she said, walking a few steps closer to the bed.

“You know what you did,” Caelyn replied. Her lips were numb.

If only I had my strength
, she thought.
I’d jump out of this bed and beat her
within an inch of her life.

“The thing is, Elijah really is a scumbag thief,” Deena said, her voice sounding sorrowful, as if it hurt her deeply to tell Caelyn such a thing.

Caelyn stared at her sister, literally at a loss for words.

Deena grinned widely. “And even if he wasn’t a scumbag thief—which we both know he is—Elijah’s a loser. He’s in and out of jail, totally useless. How could you see yourself with someone like him?”

“Deena, you know what your problem is?” Caelyn asked.

“Why don’t you tell me?” Deena crossed her arms and tilted her head.

“Nobody’s ever loved you,” Caelyn said.

Deena snorted, but Caelyn thought she saw a small wince, almost imperceptible, as if Deena had instantly been hurt and then pretended not to be. “If what you and that loser had was called love,” Deena said, “then I think I’ll take a pass.”

“I’m not talking about Elijah. I’m talking about Mom and Dad. They never loved you like they loved me,” Caelyn said. “You knew it and it drove you crazy.”

Deena sneered. “They just worshipped you because they had no idea what an imbecile you were the whole time. But now look at you, lying there like a bag of bones.

Kicked out of school. No friends. No boyfriend. Mom and Dad hate you. You disgust them.”

“But I’m loved,” Caelyn said softly. “He’ll always love me, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Because nobody will ever love you, Deena.”

Deena’s smile faded and her eyes turned colder and deader than even Jayson’s.

“You should be careful what you say to me, Caelyn. You don’t know what I’m capable of.”

Caelyn suddenly felt stronger than she’d felt in a long time. Maybe it was the adrenaline rush of all the anger, but she made herself get out of bed and stand up, quickly, without effort. Then she walked to within a few inches of where Deena was standing and glared into her eyes.

“You don’t know what I’m capable of. And if you don’t leave my room—right now—I’m going to break your nose.”

Deena laughed, but she took a step back. “I could knock you over if I breathed on you.”

“Try me you little bitch.” Caelyn clenched her fists.

Deena’s lip twitched, and then she spun on her heel and walked out of the room.

When she was safely in the hallway, Deena stopped and spoke once more. “Gosh, I just had a horrible thought. Do you think Elijah’s going to a real prison…like…one where he’ll be violated by a bunch of big criminals? A cute young guy like him…”

Caelyn wanted to run after her, but now the strength she’d felt a moment ago seemed to be quickly fading.

As if sensing it, Deena giggled and then walked away as if she owned the world.

***

Caelyn decided to search Deena’s room.

Caelyn had been sitting and stewing, exhausted but furious—a cold, brittle fury that sapped her strength and made her nauseous.

The things Deena had done and said to her just couldn’t be gotten away with. She thought about Elijah and the way he stood up for himself.

Elijah would never let anyone talk to him like that, hurt him like that.

Thinking of Elijah made her smile, but then it made her want to cry. She pictured him in the kitchen of the old apartment, cooking something on the stove and cracking jokes while Caelyn laughed.

Downstairs, she could hear the familiar sounds of her mother and father and Deena talking to and at one another as if nothing in the world was wrong.